How's It Going To Be
by ExplosionsInTheNight
Summary: Hermione would never be able to forget the first boy she ever fell in love with. But after a sudden disappearance, she thought she would never see him again. But what if that same boy had been right under her nose for the past six years. DM/HG
1. Chapter 1

_**So hello, this is my first ever Harry Potter fan fiction.**_

_**And just to be clear, I am not J.K.R though I may wish that I were. **_

_**Hermione would never be able to forget the first boy she ever fell in love with. But after a sudden disappearance, she thought she would never see him again. But what if that same boy had been right under her nose for the past six years and she never even knew it, that fate had brought them back together, will they be able to put their past differences apart to bring their past love back together again. **_

She could remember it like it was yesterday.

_He had been her best friend and she loved him, well as much as a five year-old could love another five year-old. He had shown up halfway through the school year, and she could remember that day clearly because they were making Christmas cards._

_When he first walked in, he seemed extremely shy, so she immediately wanted to befriend the new boy. After the teacher introduced him, she put him in the seat right next to the anxious girl. Almost immediately after he sat down the young girl decided to introduce herself, "Hello, my name is Kate, it's nice to meet you!"_

_Looking a little less nervous the boy turned to her and introduced himself. "Hi my name is Dylan," with a smile on his face._

_It was in that moment that she knew they would be the best of friends. _

_From that day forward the two became inseparable. After two weeks, their parents finally let them have play dates after school was over. _

_Going over to Dylan's house was always interesting because he never had a TV, so the two spent their time playing in his backyard. They would make up their own games and even play house every once in a while. _

_It was almost a year later that it happened. The day before, Dylan came over to her house like he did any other day, except this day he brought a gift for her._

_While they were playing in Kate's backyard, Dylan pulled a ring out of his pocket and nervously asked, "Kate will you marry me?" The ring he held in his hand was nothing extraordinary, just a plain silver band with both of their names engraved on the inside._

_Almost immediately Kate jumped up and gave him the biggest hug she had ever given anyone and simply said, "Yes!"_

_Now seeing as they were only six at the time, they couldn't actually get married. So instead Kate went and quickly grabbed a daisy from one of her mother's flower bushes and they had their own little ceremony behind one of the big trees in her back yard. _

_Once the "ceremony" was over, he slid the tiny ring onto her finger and gave each other a single peck on the lips. Afterwards they spent the rest of the day chasing each other around the yard, playing without a care in the world._

_After Dylan had left for the evening, Kate excitedly told her mother what had happened. Surprisingly enough he mother didn't really find anything wrong with it, ever since Dylan had entered her daughter's life, she had been the happiest child anyone had ever seen. She could see the two children being best friends for a very long time, she could see them possibly dating once they were old enough, and maybe even one day they would get married for real. But she knew she was looking way too far into the future, she was just so glad that her daughter had such a great friend. Up to that point she had never really made any friends while she was in school._

_The next day when her daughter got home from school, she could tell that something was wrong. When she asked, all her daughter said was that Dylan hadn't been in school that day._

_Over the next week Dylan had yet to return to school and she was starting to wonder what had happened to him. Finally after her daughters persistent begging, her mother called his house to see if she could get a hold of his mother, but alas there was no answer._

_The next day, after she dropped her daughter off at school, she decided to drive by the boy's house. Sadly when she got there, she found the house completely empty with a for sale sign in the front yard. _

_She felt terrible because she knew that it would just break her daughter's heart. The boy that she cared for so deeply was gone._

_When her daughter got home that afternoon, she took her into the living room and sat her on the couch and explained to her what had happened._

_Before she could even finish, her daughter was on her feet running towards her room as tears ran down her face._

_Before she could reach her daughter, she had already locked herself in the room and she could hear her crying on the other side of the door._

"_Kate honey, please come out?" Her mother begged._

"_Don't call me Kate anymore, It's Hermione," he daughter exclaimed. _

_Now she knew how upset her daughter really was. Seeing that she couldn't really do anything else to help the situation for the moment, she left her daughter in peace._

It had been over eleven years since that day, and Hermione knew that was when she became completely devoted to her school work.

After Dylan had left, she immerged herself in school work so she wouldn't have to think about him. Ever since then that was the most important thing to her.

She also never allowed herself to get close to anyone again, that was until she became friends with Harry and Ron during her first year at Hogwarts. But somehow, she still felt like she still wasn't as close to them as she had been with Dylan.

Even as she got older, she couldn't even try looking him up because she never did know his last name. Surprisingly, neither could her mother.

And even if he ever wanted to look her up, he wouldn't be able to find her either because of that stupid stage she went through where she changed her name.

Before she met him, she would change her name every other week. But after they met, Kate just kind of stuck. So he wouldn't even know what he real name even was even if he wanted to find her.

All she had left was their "wedding" band, as she looked back on their "wedding day" all she could do was giggle quietly to herself and remember how cute it was.

Now that she was grown up, she didn't love him anymore, if you can even call what they had was love. But she still missed him. Now she kept his ring on a chain around her neck that was hidden underneath her clothing.

Hermione was currently lying in her bed twirling the necklace around her fingers trying to remember if there was anything else she needed to do. All of her things were packed and she still had a good two hours before she had to be at Platform 9¾, so she figured she would just lay there in think for awhile.

She started to imagine what her year was going to be like; she could remember how excited she was when she got her letter telling her that she was going to be head girl. The first thing she did, after jumping around and screaming for a good four minutes, was write Harry and Ron and tell them the good news.

She couldn't wait to get to school and see the heads dorm, she had been dreaming of being head girl since year one. But she wondered who the head boy would be; as she started to go through a list of names in her head she heard a knock at her door.

"Come in," she said as she sat up in her bed.

Her mom walked in and started around the room. "It looks like your packed and ready."

"Yeah, well I've been pretty much packed for the last two weeks."

"Well were going to be leaving here in five minutes so start bringing your things downstairs." With that she closed the door giving her daughter her last bit of alone time.

Finally after another minute Hermione got up and gave her room one last look over. Before picking up her trunk, she made sure she slid the necklace back underneath her shirt and with a sigh; she gathered her things and was off. She couldn't believe that this was going to be her final year at Hogwarts.

_**So that's the first chapter, I really hope you all liked it.**_

_**So let me just say that I'm really excited for this story.**_

_**Any who, tell me what you think.**_

_**Reviews are definitely appreciated.**_

_**3Dani**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Well here's chapter number two. Gah, you all do not understand how excited I am about this story, it just flows so nicely out of my head and onto you were wondering, I got the name of this story from the song How's It Going To Be by Third Eye Blind. It's a great song, if you haven't heard it you should go take a and by the way if you couldn't tell, I'm not J.K.R, I'm just taking her characters on a little road trip. Enjoy.**

Draco hated day like these more than anything. All of his things were packed up but he still had a good two hours before he had to be on the train. But the waiting around part wasn't why he hated it; he hated it because when he's given time to just sit around and think, he mind begins to wander to places that are so far away that it can almost be considered as some kind of dream.

As Draco laid across his bed, he couldn't help but let his mind wander back in time, back to the happiest time in his life.

_Draco could remember it like it was yesterday. For up to four years at that point, the Ministry of Magic had been really persistent in trying to round up all of the Death Eaters after Voldemorts disappearance. _

_So to keep them safe Draco's father had been moving them around every few months. Lucius had been placing them in muggle neighborhoods, changing their appearances slightly, and changing their names with the simple instructions of living the life of an everyday muggle. Of course he would never stay with them because the ministry was really only interested in capturing him, but he just wanted to make sure his family was safe. _

_The routine was always the same; they would get to a house, and immediately enroll Draco into a nearby muggle school while Narcissa stayed at home. They changed his hair color to brunette and changed his name to Dylan. Now Draco and his mother would live this quite little life until they would receive and owl from Lucius that had a new address on it. With that, they would pick everything up and move instantly. _

_At that time in his life, Draco never really had anything against muggles; they just generally stayed away from him. Maybe on some subconscious level, they knew that he was different than the rest of them. And even if they had known what he was, they probably would have thought he was some kind of freak or something. _

_That was until one time when he was about five years old. Like usual, he and his mother moved into a new city. On his first day of school, the teacher set him next to a girl who immediately introduced herself the moment he sat down. It was the first time another student had ever confronted him so he immediately introduced himself to her. _

_Over the next few weeks him and Kate became the best of friends. Eventually Draco was able to convince his mother to let her come over to their house to play. Narcissa was overjoyed that Draco had been able to find a friend, but she knew that they would eventually get owl from Lucius forcing them to pick up everything and disappear._

_Surprisingly enough, a year had gone by and they still hadn't heard from Lucius._

_One night, Draco came up to his mother and asked her if she could help him with something. When she willingly agreed, Draco told her that he wanted to marry the girl he had befriended. _

_Narcissa couldn't help but giggle at his request, by she could see how much Draco loved this girl, it radiated off him every second of the day. After thinking it over for a minute, she finally agreed. She thought it was a cute idea._

_That night she used her wand to make a little silver ring. After it was made she engraved both of their names on the inside, and with a final touch she put a sizing charm on it so that the ring would still fit her finger as she grew up. _

_Sadly Narcissa knew that they wouldn't be able to stay around long enough for that to happen. She had a bad feeling they wouldn't be around much longer at all. _

_The next day while Draco was at school, Narcissa was sitting in the living room reading a book when she suddenly heard a loud tapping coming from the kitchen. With a sigh, she got up to examine the source of this noise, stepping into the kitchen she gasped and dropped her now forgotten book on the floor. _

_Hovering outside their kitchen window was an owl with a letter in its beak. Running across the room and flinging open the window Narcissa could believe this was happening._

_The owl swiftly flew in, dropped the letter at her feet, and then left. She couldn't help but look down at the letter like it was carrying the black plague; she didn't want to touch it because as soon as she opened it, their fate would be sealed. She knew that by the time morning came, they would be gone, and Draco would be heartbroken. _

_After opening the letter and confirming her suspicion, Narcissa spent the rest of the day slowly packing their belongings. She knew that as soon as Draco came home that evening, they would be leaving forever._

_As Draco walked home that evening, he couldn't help but feel like the happiest six year old in the world. Little did he knew that his high would soon come crashing back down to earth._

_As soon as Draco opened the door "Mom, I'm home. You'll never guess wha….." He froze as the door slammed behind him. _

_When Draco saw the empty house before him, he went into a state of shock. He knew what it meant, but he didn't want to believe it. Why now? He wasn't ready to leave yet. _

_When Narcissa heard her son stop mid sentence, she knew that he knew what was happening. _

_As Narcissa got up from her seat and went into the entrance way to the house, she saw her son standing there speechless, with tears running down his face; she could feel her own heart shatter. _

_Narcissa quickly went over to her son and kneeled on the ground and hugged him. For a brief minute, she cried with her son, but she knew they had to leave. Carefully she picked up her son, surprisingly he went without a fight, and she apperated them to their new home. Once they touched down and his mother set him on the ground, Draco slowly walked to his room and silently cried himself to sleep_.

Now as Draco sat in the middle of his bed eleven years later, he realized that night was the last time he had cried.

Every time they moved after that, he kept to himself more than he had before. Even if another student had even tried to talk to him, he would just ignore them.

His mother was the only other person in his life who knew how much that one girl had meant to him. His mother was the only person who saw how much leaving her truly affected him. Since then, he NEVER let himself become that emotionally attached to anyone again, because he would never knew if or when they would be violently ripped out of his life.

A few years ago, Draco realized that it wasn't just his father's influences that lead him to hate muggles as much as he did. He couldn't help but partially blame Kate. As he got older he started to have a love/hate relationship with her memory. He hated her for making him love him as much as he did, but he still missed her.

Sighing to himself, Draco dismissed the whole thought process from his head and instead went on to think about the year ahead of him.

He couldn't be more thankful for the fact that he was going to be head boy. He really was starting to get sick of having to deal with thick headedness of his fellow Slytherin's. He was just ecstatic that he only had to share his living quarters with one other person.

Draco had no doubt in his mind that his counterpart would be no other that mudblood Granger. They did call her the brightest witch of her age. But even with this realization, he found that he couldn't be too upset with the living arrangements. This only meant that he would have free range to bug the shit out of her every chance he got. This thought plastered a smirk on his face.

Looking over at the clock, Draco realized that he had just spent the last hour and a half thinking about Kate and Granger. What a waste of time.

Discouraged, Draco got up and started to put on his shoes. When he finished, he realized that his school trunk had disappeared, he figured one of the house elves must have come in at one point during his day dream and taken his belongings down stairs. Swiftly getting up from his bed and without taking a second look back, he left his room and was on his way to his final year at Hogwarts.

**Well I hope you liked it. I wonder what will happen next, who will figure it out first? Tell me what you think, it always helps.**

**Thanks again,**

**3Dani**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello Hello, well here's chapter three. I decided to re-write it a little bit so here is the second and in my opinion better version.**

**Sorry for the long wait but school has been sucking lately, but now I am officially on spring break, kinda. So hopefully I will be doing a lot more writing this week. Hell, I got this done in one day. Well enjoy, and on another note, I'm not JKR and I do not own Harry Potter. **

Immediately after Hermione set foot out of her parent's car, she knew that she was running late. She quickly gave both of her parents a hug and a kiss on the cheek and started running. She knew that if she didn't hurry up, the barrier would close and she would miss the train.

She had never been late for the train once, if only she hadn't spent her entire day lying around day dreaming.

Hermione ran through King's Cross, gaining speed as she got closer to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. She was determined to make it onto that train, even if that meant she had to jump on it as it was leaving the station.

She quickly looked around to make sure no one would see her and when the coast was clear, she ran straight through the barrier.

With a sigh of relief that she made it through, she stopped to catch her breath. That was until she heard the trains whistle signaling its departure. She couldn't help but let out an aggravated sigh. "I was being facetious," she announced as she took off running, once again, towards the now moving train.

With one giant leap, she jumped into one of the open doors as the train was passing by her.

Lying on the ground, Hermione couldn't help but laugh as she caught her breathe. All around her compartment doors were opening to see what had caused the sudden disturbance.

Once she could finally breathe at a normal pace and after everyone disappeared back into their cabins, she picked herself up and gathered her belonging and went in search of Harry and Ron.

As Hermione started making her way to the back of the train, she couldn't help but feel hurt at the fact that Harry nor Ron ever congratulated her on becoming Head Girl. She had owled them over two weeks ago, yet she never got a response back from either of them.

Hermione finally made it to the back compartment and opened the door. As soon as she saw her two friends smiling up at her, all of her anger towards the two instantly melted away.

When they finally saw her, they both got up and ambushed her with a group hug. "Oh Hermione, you have no idea how much we've missed you," Ron said as he squeezed her.

"Yeah, where have you been?" Harry asked. "We thought you were going to miss the train."

"I thought I was going to miss it too," she said agreeing with him.

Ron went back to his seat first and spread himself across the entire seat. "You were probably just rereading your textbooks, right Hermione?"

Too embarrassed of them knowing why she was really late, she just nodded her head in agreement. She could only imagine the looks on their faces if she told them she spent the entire morning laying on her bed thinking about a boy.

Harry sat down, but when he realized Hermione was still standing he stared up at her with a questioning look.

As soon as Hermione saw this, she realized that they must have forgotten about her being head girl. "I can't stay."

Harry was even more confused, "Why not?" he asked even more confused than before.

"Because I need to go up to the heads compartment," she explained.

Harry felt like an idiot. He was just now remembering the letter Ron and he received from Hermione a few weeks back telling them her good news. God he felt like such a jerk, he never even wrote back to congratulate her.

Before he could even apologize to her, Ron decided to open his big mouth.

"You never told us you were head girl," he said aggravated that she didn't tell him.

When Harry looked over at Hermione, he could see the hurt expression on her face.

Before Ron could say anything else, Harry decided to speak up. "Yes she did," he said, "We're just idiots and completely forgot about it and didn't even congratulate her." With that, he got up out of his seat and went to hug her again. "Congratulations Hermione, you deserve it more that anyone," he said while rubbing her back.

Hermione instantly felt better, if she really had to classify which of the two boys was her best friend, she knew that hands down it would be Harry.

"Yeah yeah, congratulations," Ron mumbled without even leaving his seat.

Hermione just rolled her eyes at him, what else did she expect, he's just as insensitive as he's always been,

"Well I have to go up to the Heads compartment and meet the head boy, but I'll see you guys at dinner Right?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, we'll see you there," Harry said reassuring her.

With one last smile at Harry and not even bothering to acknowledge Ron, she left making sure to shut the door behind her.

As soon as Hermione left, Ron couldn't help but open his big mouth again. "I wonder what in the hell her problem was?"

Harry was dumbfounded at how incredibly dumb Ron really was.

"Ron you are such an idiot," he said shaking his head at the boy.

"What did I do?" he asked confused by what Harry said.

"Do you, or do you not like Hermione?"

"Oh course I like her, you know that more than anyone Harry."

"Well you sure don't act like it," Harry replied sharply.

Realizing that he had been unkind to Hermione, Ron laid back down and sulked for the rest of the trip.

Harry knew that Ron's heart was in the right place, the problem was the he just didn't know how to express his feelings to the girl. In a way, Harry actually felt a little sorry for Ron.

Harry really was happy that she had made Head Girl, but he couldn't help but be a little bit jealous at the thought of Hermione sharing a dorm with another guy. He knew he had nothing to worry about though because he knew she would never do anything.

He couldn't help but blame the fact on him liking Hermione on Ron. While they were in fourth year, Ron and he were talking one night and somehow the conversation got onto Hermione. Almost immediately Ron confessed his liking towards Hermione.

At the time, Harry really had no feeling towards the girl, but since that night he couldn't help but see her in a completely different light. Up to that point, he never really thought of her as a girl, but just another one of their friends. But since then he could see how much she had changed since their first year her hair had lost some of its frizz, her teeth became straighter, and her body had definitely filled out a bit.

Harry never told anyone that he liked her, especially since he knew how much Ron liked her. He couldn't imagine how hurt his best friend would be if he found out he like her too.

______________________________

Hermione finally left the two boys and started heading towards the front of the train, she couldn't help but start to get excited to find out who Head Boy would be.

She was a little bit nervous at the thought of having to share a dorm together, but she knew that since he was chosen as Head Boy he must be respectful as well as an intelligent and responsible student. When she made it to the front compartment, she stopped just outside and took a deep breath.

When she finally opened the door and stepped in, she couldn't help but groan at the sight in front of her. How was this even possible?

Without even looking up from his book to see who entered, he knew it was Granger. "You sound happy to see me," he said with a smirk on his face.

Exasperated, she plopped down on the seat across from him and put her face in her hands.

Draco couldn't believe how over dramatic she was being, "Trust me; I'm not too thrilled to see you either," he said as he snapped his book shut.

Suddenly she was sitting up straight looking more agitated than before. "How in the hell did you even become Head Boy?"

"Maybe it's the fact that I'm first in our class…"

"Well, behind me of course," Hermione said still sounding distressed as she put her head back in her hands.

"Yeah well that has yet to be proven," he sneered, "Besides I have a spotless record…"

"Don't forget that detention you got during our first year," she said recalling their night in the Forbidden Forest.

"How in the bloody hell do you even remember that," he accused becoming more irritated with her by the minute.

"Maybe it's because I was there serving the detention with you, dumbass," she said the last part under her breath.

"Wow, language Grander, and tell me, how does a mudblood make friends? Because I thought it was nearly impossible," he said leaning closer to her looking interested.

Leaning forward so they were now face to face, she whispered, "Go jump of a bridge Malfoy!"

Before he could say anything back, she pulled out a book and started reading.

Believing he won this argument, Draco decided to let it go so he opened his book back up, and continued reading for the rest of their journey.

Once the train pulled into the Hogsmeade station, Hermione and Draco both got up without a word to each other and left.

Almost immediately after stepping off the train, Hermione heard her name being called. Turning around, she saw Harry and Ron were about fifty feet away signaling for her to come to them.

After dodging in and out of other students, she was finally able to reach them. "Hey Harry," she smiled, "Ron," she said barely acknowledging him.

Unexpectedly, Ron stepped forward and embraced her. "I'm sorry I was such a prat Hermione. Congratulations on being Head Girl," he pulled back still holding on to her shoulders, "you really do deserve it," he said looking into her eyes with a smile on his face.

Relieved that they were okay again, Hermione pulled him back into another hug. She really hated fighting with Ron.

Watching them, Harry felt the sudden urge to punch Ron in the face. Shaking his head, Harry couldn't believe that he was even thinking that. Ron was his best friend, and he had liked Hermione first.

It was decided, Harry would stop liking Hermione no matter what it took. Besides, she would never like him anyways.

Not being able to take it anymore, Harry finally decided to break it up. "Alright you two, don't you guys think we should go get a carriage?"

"Yeah come on lets hurry up so we can get good seats for the sorting ceremony," Hermione was now rushing them into one of the carriages.

Once they got up to the school, the three friends hopped out of their carriage and started heading towards the Great Hall. When they got in, they were relieved to notice that they were still able to get decent seats.

After another five minutes, everyone was seated and chatting with one another about each other's summers and the year ahead of them.

Suddenly with a loud bang, the two doors at the back of the hall swung open exposing the group of nervous first years.

As they started walking past Ron couldn't help but wonder out loud to his two friends, "Is it just me or do the first years get smaller and smaller and smaller every year?"

"Oh Ronald, you were that small when you were their age, and you were probably just as nervous too," Hermione said.

Ron leaned closer to Harry so that Hermione couldn't hear, "I still think their smaller." The two tried to contain their laugher.

"Shhh, it's starting," Hermione said to them.

After each of the new students were sorted into their perspective houses, Dumbledore came forward to address the students.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! Now before we begin a delectable feast, I have a few things I would like to say to everyone. Now whether this is your very first year at Hogwarts or your last, I want to advise every last one of you to not just keep the friends you have, but to also reach out and make new ones, and if possible, to reconnect with lost friends. Well, I have held you all up for long enough, let the feast begin," and with that, Dumbledore clapped his hands together so that food could now be seen across the entire hall.

As Harry and Ron began stuffing their faces, Hermione was still thinking about what Dumbledore had said in his speech, and for some reason she felt like he was directly addressing her. Shaking it off, Hermione picked up her fork and began to eat.

Little did she know, that across the hall another student was thinking the same exact thing she was.

As everyone around Draco began eating their food, apart from Crabbe and Goyle who were swallowing it whole, he couldn't help but feel that Dumbledore's little speech had something to do with him; he just couldn't put his finger on it. Finally deciding to let it go, Draco began to put food onto his plate.

After everyone was finished eating about forty-five minutes later, Dumbledore once again got up to address the students one last time before sending them off to their dormitories.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and waited a few seconds to ensure that everyone was silent.

"Well now that everyone has satisfied their hunger, let me proceed to our final announcements before you had back to your dorms for a good night's sleep. I would like to announce who will be this year's Head Boy and Head Girl. For Head Girl we have Miss Hermione Granger."

There was a sudden eruption of applause across the Great Hall, minus the entirety of the Slytherin table who remained completely silent. Hermione stood up so that the first years could see who she was, and with a smile she sat back down.

Once everyone had calmed down Dumbledore continued, "And for our Head Boy, you have Draco Malfoy."

All anyone could hear was the cheering of every single person at the Slytherin table as the rest of the hall looked on, flabbergasted at the choice for Head Boy.

Hermione just shook her head still disgusted at the thought of having to share a living space with him. Why did Dumbledore do this to her?

When the Slytherin's finally returned to their seats and finished their gloating, Dumbledore finished.

"Could the head boy and head girl bring themselves to the front, and everyone else can head to their dormitories, good-night!"

As soon as he dismissed the students, everyone was up and talking about the new head boy.

"I still can't believe that he was picked as head boy," Ron said as he took a final bite of his of his pecan pie, "Iwt jwust donnent mwke awny swense."

"Ronald, please swallow you food before speak," Hermione said disgusted at his bad habits. "Well I better go see Dumbledore, I'll see you guys later," she said as she got up and began walking towards the front of the hall.

As she made her way to the front, she could hear the other students talking about her as she passed by them.

"Can you believe she has to live with Malfoy?"

"What do you think he'll do to her?"

"I'll bet you one of them will kill the other by the end of the week."

"I wonder if she'll get to see him naked."

Hermione was shocked at what they were saying, she couldn't believe that they had such little faith in her, that she and Malfoy wouldn't be able to live peacefully together. She was a little disturbed by the last comment, when she thought about it she couldn't help but gag at the idea.

"What's with the face mudblood; did you finally realize how much of a waste of space you truly are?" Draco whispered to her when she finally reached them.

Without even acknowledging his existence, she walked up to Dumbledore.

"Alrighty then, I am thrilled that the both of you have accepted the positions as head boy and girl, and I'm hoping that you will be able to put aside your differences and be able to work together as a team."

"Of course Professor," Hermione answered promptly.

Malfoy couldn't help but scoff at her ass kissing. "Yeah I'm sure that we will become the best of friends," he added sarcastically.

"I know you will," Dumbledore said quietly in response.

Ignoring their questioning look, he continued. "And finally, the password for your dormitory is Tempus Fugit, good-night and may you both have pleasant dreams."

Without even waiting for Malfoy, Hermione took off at a brisk walking pace towards their dorms.

When Draco noticed her walking away, he quickly went to catch up but still making sure to stay a good ten feet behind her. Stupid Granger is always in such a freaking hurry.

When they finally reached the door, Hermione look up at the young man in the painting who looked like he was around their age.

"Hello, I'm Hermione," she said introducing herself to the portrait.

Something about this whole scenario felt like déjà vu to Draco. What was with tonight?

"It's nice to meet you Hermione, I am Alexander, and who is this?" he asked looking at the boy beside the her.

"The names Draco," he said flatly. "Tempus Fugit."

Immediately Alexander opened the door and let the boy in.

After the door closed behind him, Hermione just shook her head in disappointment. Why couldn't he just be a little more polite?

"Well I sure hope you will be okay in there with him," Alexander asked after the door closed.

"I'm sure I will be fine," Hermione said smiling up at the painting. "Tempus Fugit, and have a good-night."

"You as well," he answered as she went inside and shut the door behind her. After the door closed, Alexander couldn't help seeing a little bit of himself in the young boy.

The moment she set foot in the common room, she gaped at the sight in front of her.

She couldn't believe it, but the head's common room was almost twice the size of Gryffindor's with even higher ceilings.

On the right side of the room there was a fire place, which was already warming up the room, in front of it was a single couch and two comfy looking arm chairs that she couldn't wait to curl up in with a book. Around the fire place, and taking up an entire wall, was a giant bookcase. Hermione was in heaven.

Across from each other were two sets of staircases which she assumed led to the bedrooms. Trying her luck, she decided to go up the one on her left, when she reached the top, she saw that on the door was a plate with her name inscribed on it.

With a sigh of relief she opened the door and was even more amazed by her bedroom. It was once again twice the size of her old dorm, and even better was that two of the walls were covered in bookshelves. She also noticed that across from her bed was a set of French doors. Being curious, she walked over to them and opened them to reveal a balcony.

After closing the doors, she went over to her dresser and put on her night clothes.

Taking a deep breath, she sprinted across the bed room and flung herself onto her queen sized bed. She couldn't imagine being any happier than she was at that precise moment. After burrowing herself underneath her covers, and turning off the lights; she drifted off into a night full of dreams that were once upon a time a reality to her.

---------------------

Draco didn't really feel like doing much exploring around the common room that night, it wasn't until dinner that he realized how tired he was. After he entered his own room, he immediately stripped down to his boxers and climbed into his queen bed.

He had to admit that so far, this was better than what he expected.

Getting underneath his sheets, Draco feel into the deepest sleep of his life where he would have the most vivid, lifelike dreams that he could never forget.

And the thing that made the dreams as amazing as they were was that she was there with him.

_**And end chapter three.**_

_**Yeah I'm so happy.**_

_**And if you were wondering, Tempus Fugit means "time flees". Who knows I might change it, it was either that or Carpe Diem which if you didn't know means "seize the day." Which do you think would work best?**_

_**Much 3**_

_**Dani**_


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N. YA chapter four, how exciting. Well it is for me at least. Enjoy!**

That was the first night that Hermione had ever dreamed about Dylan. Sure she had day dreamed about him, but he had never been a part of her night dreams. But oh what a wonderful dream it was.

_It was a warm spring day and Kate and Dylan were walking on the playground during Recess. All around them flowers were beginning to bloom and Kate couldn't help but smile at the smell of spring all around her. _

_They decided to walk over to the far corner of the play ground where if you went about ten feet into the woods, you would find a grassy opening with flowers blossoming all around them. _

_They went to the center of the clearing and sat down together. Immediately after sitting down, Dylan got up and went over to the edge of the woods._

_Finally after about thirty seconds, he came back._

"_This is for you," he said as he presented her with the most beautiful blue flower she had ever seen. _

_He carefully put it behind her ear and sat down next to her again with a smile on his face. That smile always gave her the butterflies, and this time was no exception. _

_They sat in their little getaway for the rest of recess and went back to that same spot every day after that. _

That was the first time that Hermione could ever remember waking up with a smile on her face. But the best part about the dream was that fact that it wasn't a dream at all, but an old memory that was almost forgotten. He always had a way of picking out the most beautiful flowers.

She had remembered that day, but it was the first time that she could remember it so clearly. So she decided to keep her eyes closed and lay in bed for another half hour so that she could commit it to memory, it was definitely something that she did not want to forget any time soon.

Finally with only forty five minutes left till breakfast, Hermione got up out of bed and went to shower. Once in the bathroom, she quickly undressed, stepped into the shower, and let the burning hot water engulf her.

In the next room over, a very tired Draco was being woken up the sound of running water in close proximity.

As he laid their coming out of his sleep, he tried to remember what exactly it was he had been dreaming only seconds before.

The more he laid there, little by little the dream started coming back to him.

_He was five years old, and he was sitting next to Katie in their classroom. The teacher had to step out for a minute, so while they were waiting for her to come back in, he started chewing on the side of his pencil. _

_All of a sudden he heard as gasp next to him._

_He turned to Kate, with the pencil in his mouth, to see what had happened. _

"_Dylan, that is a terrible habit," she said in her stern motherly tone._

_He instantly let the pencil drop out of his mouth. Even though he still chewed on his pencil after that, he made sure that Kate would never catch him doing it again._

Draco couldn't believe that he actually remembered that day. Now that he had dreamed it, he could see it as clear as day.

If someone today would of told him to stop doing something, he would probably tell them to shut the hell up and mind their own business. But there was something about the way that she did it, it seemed like she was doing it because she cared for him.

He couldn't help but groan in his pillow at that thought, and why in the hell was he dreaming about Kate anyways? He tried to avoid the thought of her the majority of the time, and he wasn't sure if he could deal with her popping up in his dreams now.

He quickly got up and walked over to the bathroom. When he got to the door, he let out an ever more aggravated groan when he realized that the door was locked from the inside.

Being uninterested in exploring his new dorm the night before, he failed to realize that him and Granger would be sharing a bathroom for the rest of the year.

It was at that point that he realized that it was going to be a long day.

Annoyed, he started banging his fist on the door.

"GRANGER, YOU BETTER HURRY THE HELL UP," he bellowed with an emphasis on each word with every strike on the door.

"Oh hold your horses Malfoy, I'll be out shortly," she yelled over the sounds of the shower.

Impatiently, Draco stood outside the door with his arms crossed tapping his food.

Within five minutes, he heard the shower turn off, and the door lock click open in another two.

Once he was inside, Draco quickly stripped down and showered in record time.

Over in her room, now with only ten minutes left, Hermione quickly dried off and got dressed. In all honesty, she didn't want to be anywhere near Malfoy when he finally got out of the shower seeing as he only had ten minutes left to get showered and dressed. But at the same time she laughed at the thought of him running around trying to get ready.

When she heard the shower finally turn off, she hurried out of her room, through the common room, and started making her way to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Once she got there, she immediately spotted Harry and Ron in the middle of the Gryffindor table.

As soon as Hermione started making her way over to them, Harry was able to sense her presence. Once he spotted her fifteen feet away he smiled and moved over to make room for her next to him.

"Good morning," he said brightly.

"Good morning to you too," she said back with her signature smile that always made him melt.

When she went to greet Ron, who was across from them, she decided against it when he saw how much food he had managed to shovel into his mouth.

As she started putting food on her plate, she noticed a very distressed Slytherin enter the Great Hall out of the corner of her eye. When she turned to get a better look, she could physically see how rushed he had been due to the fact that his hair seemed to be sticking up in all directions.

As hard as she tried to suppress it, she still ended up laughing out loud at the sight.

"What's so funny," Harry asked seeming interested.

"Oh nothing, nothing," Hermione said still giggling, "I was just remembered something."

For the rest of breakfast, Hermione let her thoughts drift back to her wonderful dream from the night before.

Across the hall, a certain disheveled Slytherin was not having as smooth of a morning. After he had gotten out of the shower his hair seemed to disregard anything Draco did to control it. After five minutes of attempting to tame his hair, Draco decided to go down to breakfast and he would return to his dorm before classes and fix it them.

When he finally got down to breakfast and made his entrance, he could have sworn that somewhere in the general direction of the Gryffindor table he heard the distinct sound of a certain mudblood's laughter. Oh how he loathed her at that moment. He would get her back for this morning, and that was for damn sure.

When he finally sat down and started eating his breakfast, he wanted nothing more than to be left alone so he could eat in peace. But of course that was too much to ask for, for not a second after that thought, he heard an even more distinctive screech coming in his direction.

Within seconds, another body collided with him causing some food to come flying out of his mouth landing back on his plate.

"Oh Drakie, you have no idea how much I missed you this summer. And what is going on with your hair?"

"Pansy," he said impatiently, "get the bloody hell off of me," he said as he shoved her to the ground.

"Well it looks like someone is a little grumpy today," she said unfazed, "But don't worry I still love you," she said. She kissed him on the cheek and quickly ran off before he could even oppose it. Draco felt like he was going to burst at the seams, all he wanted to do was scream at the top of his lungs.

When he looked down at his plate and saw breakfast covered in the food that had just come flying out of his mouth, he lost his appetite shoving his plate of food away from him and putting his head down on the table.

After fifteen minutes, the heads of the houses began to walk around and hand out time tables to the students.

When McGonagall finally made it to the golden trio, Hermione was happy to see that she had gotten the majority of the classes she had wanted. Even if she was allowed too, she wouldn't have taken all of the classes she wanted, not after what had happened during their third year. She would never put herself through that ever again.

As she looked her schedule over again, she was generally happy with it. That was until she realized that her first class of the day was double potions with the Slytherin's.

After a minute, the three of them traded with each other.

"I'm just glad that I'm not the only one who has double potions with Snape first," Harry said relieved that he would be spending the entire period with Hermione.

"You guys are crazy; you couldn't have offered me enough galleons to take his class again," Ron added in.

"Yeah I'm sure since you would much rather be taking _Famous Witches through the Ages, _wouldn't you Romilda," Hermione said laughing at him.

"What in the heck are you talking about," Ron said as snatching his schedule out of her hands.

"Excuse ," said someone directly behind Ron. "I believe I handed you the wrong time table," McGonagall said as she took it out of his hands and gave him his real schedule.

Not even having it in his hands for two seconds, Hermione snatched it from him so she and Harry could look at it.

"Well, well, looks like you will be joining us this morning," she said mockingly.

"Are you freaking kidding me," Ron said stunned. "Son of a bi-"

"RONALD," Hermione practically yelled. "Watch your language," she said glaring at him. She forcefully tossed his schedule back in his face. Lucky for him, he caught it right before it landed in a vat of oatmeal.

He knew not to press his luck with her this early in the morning, so he just kept his mouth shut.

Harry let out a cough. "So, how about we head to class," he suggested trying to break the awkward silence between his two best friends.

"Oh bother," Hermione said when she saw what time it was "If we don't hurry it up were going to be late." She quickly got up and gathered her things.

When she saw that Harry and Ron were still sitting down she let out a heavy sigh, "You both know that Snape won't hesitate taking points away on the first day," she added in frustrated at their lack of motivation.

With that, the two boys quickly got up and gathered their things, and the trio began making their way down to the dungeons.

**A/N. Sorry for the wait but here you go and I hope you liked it!**

**Please R&R. It is much appreciated!**


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N**__. So anywho, here is chapter five. I'm trying to get this out to you all as quickly as possible, and I have a feeling that I might be a little while till the next chapter because these next two weeks will be like death with exams and studying and what not, but as soon as graduation is over *tear* and summer starts, I'll have a lot more time to write. So without further ado, here is chapter five. And thanks for reading my rant!_

As quickly as they could, Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way down to the dungeons. You could always tell you were getting close when the air started becoming thinner, and the temperature would drop a good deal.

Hermione hated the idea of being late to her very first class of the year, especially since it was double potions with the Slytherin's. She also wasn't looking forward to having to face Malfoy after she took forever in the shower this morning.

When they finally barged in the class room door, it was clear that Snape had been waiting for their arrival.

"Well, how nice you to join us." Snape said as they walked to their seats. "I think this calls for a thirty point deduction," as soon as the words left his mouth, Ron and Harry's jaws dropped in disbelief.

"Each!" Snape finished with a satisfied look on his face as he turned his back on them.

Just as Ron was opening his mouth to argue back, Hermione grabbed him by the pants, and yanked him down into his seat before he could say anything. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut.

In the seat behind them Malfoy, you had managed to control his hair, couldn't contain himself

"Wow Potter, way to lose ninety house points not even…" he paused to check the time, "five minutes into the year. I think that might just be a new record."

As Malfoy and Blaise Zabini laughed quietly behind them, Hermione was attempting to calm Harry down, who looked like he was about to turn around and hit Malfoy in the face.

"Harry, you can't let Malfoy get to you like that." Hermione whispered in a soothing voice. She was definitely helping, but Harry was still pissed off. Suddenly he felt her rubbing his arm. When he looked to his left and saw Hermione smiling at him again, he completely forgot about what had just happened. When she looked back towards the front, Harry shook his head in attempt to get her out of him thoughts.

Snape ignored Malfoy's snide remarks. "Alright class, before we get started today we…." Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

Annoyed at the sudden disturbance, Snape glided to the door and flung it open to see a very startled McGonagall. He immediately regretted his impulsive action now that he was faced with the angry female professor.

Professor McGonagall quickly pulled herself together. "Professor Dumbledore would like to see you at once." She sharply turned around and stormed down the corridor.

The class quietly witnessed the encounter, and was now wondering why Snape was muttering to himself.

If it was possible, Snape looked more miserable than usual. "Well it looks like I will have to step out for a moment. And if anything is out of place by the time I return, it will be detentions for an entire month," and with that he sulked out of the potions classroom slamming the door behind him.

As soon as the door closed behind him, the entire class broke off into their own conversation. That was everyone except a certain bookwork who opened her potions book and began reviewing.

When Hermione was in the middle of reading how to properly brew _Wolfsbane_, she started hearing a faint sound coming from her right. After trying to ignore it for a few minutes, she just couldn't take it anymore. She snapped her potions book shut, and turned to her right, and to her surprise, she saw Ron gnawing on the side of his pencil.

Behind the trio sat an extremely bored Draco Malfoy who was, like the red head right in front of him, chewing on the side of his pencil and reminiscing of the first year he threatened on his way to class. But he was instantly brought back to reality at the sound of a horrified gasp coming from in front of him.

He quickly glanced up, with the pencil still in his mouth, to see a slightly irritated Granger who looked like she was about to go off into a rant, and to her right was the Weasel who was gnawing on a pencil much like himself.

Hermione looked like she was about to kill the red head. "Ron that is a terrible habit!"

Before Ron could even get the pencil out of his mouth, he felt something sharp impale him in the back of the head, causing him to spit his own pencil out on his desk.

He quickly grabbed the back of his head. "OWW, what in the bloody hell was that?"

Hermione and Ron immediately turned around to see Draco Malfoy, with his mouth hanging open, starting at the two of them like they had gone absolutely mad.

Ron looked down to the floor and saw a pencil lying on the ground. "Did you just chuck your pencil at the back of my head?" He accused angrily as he rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head.

But Malfoy didn't responded; he continued to sit there in complete and utter shock.

"Malfoy, what are you gawking at?" Hermione asked annoyed.

Draco ignored her previous question. "What did you just say Granger?"

Hermione looked at him, eyes puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

"What. Did. You. Just. Say?" he demanded.

"What are you gawking at?"

"No, no, before that."

"Umm. Ron, that is a terrible habit," she said unsure.

Suddenly his face went blank.

For the first time, as Hermione gazed at Malfoy, she didn't see the cold grayness that his eyes usually held. Instead she saw a number of different emotions that were going though his mind; she saw anger, recognition, confusion, sadness, and loss. For the first time, she could see a tiny shred of humanity inside of the blond Slytherin.

Across from her, Malfoy's thoughts were running faster than he could keep up with. This couldn't be happening, why was this happening? Not only was Kate now popping up in his dreams, but now Mudblood Granger was taking the words right out of her mouth. Why did Merlin hate him so much?

He let out an aggravated groan and let his head fall down onto his desk, which sounded quite painful and actually startled Hermione.

She looked around to see if anyone else had seen what had just happened, and by the looks of it only their two tables took any notice of Malfoy's strange behavior.

Hermione looked beside Malfoy to see Blaise Zabini looking back at her. When she gave him a questioning look, he just shrugged looking just as confused as she was.

"Uhhh, Malfoy," Hermione said hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

"Ehhh, just please shut up," he mumbled back without even lifting his head off the desk.

"But..."

"No," he shouted while yanking his head up to glare at her. "Not another freaking word!"

By this time, they had captured the attention of the entire class who were now silently watching the confrontation.

Without another word, Hermione, Ron, and Harry turned back around in their seats, and began talking to each other.

Eventually, everyone else in the class went back to their own conversations, but Draco continued to stare off into space with an empty look on his face.

"And what was that," Blaise asked in a hushed tone, but Draco was still in his own world.

"Hey Draco," he said snapping his fingers in front of his face, finally getting his attention. "What was that all about? You just spat your pencil out of your mouth and into the back of Weasley's head, not that I'm complaining or anything because it was pretty hilarious, but still."

"Umm nothing," he said uneasily. "Don't worry about it."

"Okay whatever," Blaise said back still unconvinced.

Slowly Draco fell back into his own thoughts where he was contemplating how to hurt the person who decided to play this cruel joke on him. But then he came up with a better plan, he still needed to get revenge on Granger for earlier that morning. Why not kill two birds with one stone? He quickly went into planning mode, trying to find the best way to get back at Granger. He also made a mental note to himself never to use pencils again.

After twenty minutes, Snape finally returned. But due to his recently acquired bad mood, he dismissed class for the day and threatened that if every single student wasn't out of his sight in thirty seconds, then he would be handing out detentions like candy on Halloween.

When the majority of the class just looked at him confused at the analogy, he shot a spell at the door causing it to fly open and yelled "GET OUT!" Finally getting the hint, the entire class gathered their things, and were out of the room in a matter of seconds.

After the events of that morning, the rest of the day seemed entirely uneventful. After potions, Hermione had Ancient Ruins with lunch right after. After lunch, she was lucky enough to have a free period, which she decided to spend in the library.

After a few minutes of weaving her way through the library, she finally made it to the far back corner of to her table; which was completely surrounded by three bookshelves and a wall. She wouldn't have been surprised if no one else even knew about her little haven. With the smell of the old books that surrounded her and the complete and utter silence, she couldn't think of any better place in the whole world.

Well now that she thought about it, she could think of one. And without even realizing it, she began thinking of her little place in the woods in the back of the playground from her childhood.

As she sat there all by herself, she replayed her dream from the night before in her head over and over again. And as she did, she started remembering other little bits and pieces from the dream; like the flower. A small smile formed on her lips as she thought about it, he always did have a way with flowers. Unknowingly, she pulled the necklace out of her shirt and started turning it through her fingers.

When she finally noticed, she held it up to gaze at it. Taking a closer look, she could she both of their names engraved on the inside. She clutched the ring in her fist as a single tear ran down her cheek. She couldn't believe she was letting herself get this emotional; she forcibly shoved the necklace back inside her shirt, whipped the lone tear away, and opened up her _Potions _book.

When she opened it, she realized that is opened to the exact same page she had been reading before when she was in class. And once again, she was off thinking about something other than her study's, but this time it was about Malfoy.

After class, Harry and Ron began making guesses as to why Malfoy acted the way he did. Harry guessed that he might have just remembered something he had to do, but Ron just assumed that he had finally gone off the deep end.

But Hermione was convinced that there was something more to it, they didn't see the look in his eyes when it happened. Something about what she had said really bothered him; he never acted that way before, ever.

Even though she was curious, she knew better then to try and pry into Malfoy's business.

To her dismay, she and had managed to get absolutely nothing done. At this point she knew that it was a lost cause, so she closed her books and put the others back in their proper places on the shelves. After she gathered all of her things together, she took a quick glanced at her watch. When she realized the time, she began weaving her way back to the front of the library.

She couldn't believe that she had sat there for over five hours and hadn't gotten anything of academic importance completed, and she was almost certain that she was going to be late to dinner.

Running as fast as her feet could carry her, with a bag full of books on her back, she rushed back to her common room to drop off her books before she went down to the great hall.

Finally she was in sight of their portrait. "Hello Alexander, sorry, can't talk, in a rush," She spit out while trying to catch her breath.

"Oh no worries, but you see…"

Without listening she said the password, causing the door to open up, and ran inside. But she immediately collided with another body, causing the two to come crashing down to the ground, on top of each other.

After the incident in potions earlier that day, Draco wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Fortunate for him he had a free period after lunch, and he was planning on spending that time by himself, lounging in the common room. He just hoped and prayed that Granger didn't have a free period as well.

To his relief, the common room was completely vacant when he arrived after lunch. The best part was that so far, he had no homework. So he was free to lay about the rest of the day, maybe he could even take a nap. With that thought in mind, he went over to the couch, plopped down, slid off his tie, unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt, and slept for a few hours.

When he woke up and realized what time it was, he quickly got up and made himself presentable. Within a minute he was ready to go and making his way towards the door. But as he was reaching for the door it flew open, and he unexpectedly tangled up with another person.

The only thing he saw before he hit the ground was a flash of curly brown hair.

_**A/N**__. So that was chapter five. So I'm trying to figure out where to take this story next, I mean I have a whole bunch a things planned out for it, but is entirely too soon to bring any of them out yet. So I have a few ideas for Draco's revenge, but if you have any ideas, I would absolutely love to read them. _


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N. Hello, hello. Sorry for the wait. But here you go! And let me just say that the song in this chapter is one of my favorites and has been stuck in my head the entire time I was writing this chapter. Enjoy! **

The moment their bodies collided on the other side of the common room door, Hermione knew that she was in trouble. Because not only did she deny him a decent shower earlier that morning, but also now she was about to come crashing down on top of him.

Immediately she closed her eyes and began bracing herself.

As soon as she ran into him, Draco knew that this was not going to be pleasant, mostly because he would be the one who would hit the floor. Where she on the other hand, would be using him as a human cushion.

And when they finally hit the ground, it was just as painful as Draco imagined it would be. He was almost certain that he would bruise.

After lying there for about three seconds, Draco roughly shoved the girl off of him and onto the stone floor next to him, causing her to groan.

"You need to watch where you're going mudblood." He sneered at her, "You're already on my list, and this only made it worse."

Both of them picked themselves up off the ground and began brushing off. While doing this, Draco noticed her hide something on a silver chain beneath her shirt out of sight, but he disregarded it.

"You had better start watching your back if you know what's good for you." He said giving her one last glare before leaving the common room, slamming the door behind him.

"Asshole." She whispered under her breath once she was alone.

After a minute of staring at the door he had just left from, Hermione remember why she had been in such a hurry. She quickly ran upstairs, dropped off her books, and exited the common room making her way down to the Great Hall for dinner.

When she entered the Great hall five minutes later, the first thing she noticed was the glare she was receiving from Malfoy over at the Slytherin table. When she made icon, she glared right back at him.

"So how was each of your days?" She asked when she sat down.

"I can't believe how much home work I have. I mean come on it's the first day back. Can't they give us a break?" Ron complained.

"Ron, we have been off from school for months now. You've had your break." She said back to him as she put food on her plate.

"Yeah well, at least they could of eased us into it a bit and not just pilled it all on at once."

"Ron, you know Hermione is right. If anything, the work load will only get heavier as the year goes on." Harry said trying to defend Hermione. When he looked over at her and smiled, she smiled right back. And if he wasn't seeing things, maybe there was even a slight blush on her cheeks.

After dinner, the three of them made their way up to the Gryffindor common room and started working. Surprisingly enough Hermione didn't have any homework like the two boys did, so instead so decided to read a book.

Not even fifteen minutes later, Harry was already confused by something. So Hermione closed her book and went and sat next to the boy so that she could offer her assistance.

When she sat down next to him, Harry couldn't help the feeling of butterflies starting to fill his stomach. As she read his paper he just sat there and watched her. The way that when her hair would fall in her face she would tuck it behind her ear, or how her brows would furrow when she was working hard on something. But the best was the way that she smelled of lavender and jasmine.

He hated that he couldn't have her; Ron would possibly murder him if he knew that he was even thinking about her in this way.

While Hermione continued reading his paper, Harry started thinking up ways of how they could be together. Finally he came to the conclusion that the only way he would ever be able to express his feelings to her would be if Ron started dating someone else.

So he decided that if Ron doesn't make a move on Hermione within the next couple of weeks, he would start trying to hook him up with other girls. And if he did eventually get a girl, Harry would jump in and sweep Hermione off her feet. It sounded like a solid plan, in his head at least.

Little did Harry know, a certain red head female was taking notice of the looks he was giving to Hermione

Hours later, after everyone else had gone to bed, Hermione and Ginny were still sitting in the common room.

"So Hermione?" Ginny started putting away her schoolwork.

"Hmm?" Hermione asked with her nose still in her book.

Ginny was trying to find a safe way to approach the subject. "So are there any boys who are catching your eye?"

"Not particularly." She answered still enthralled in her book.

"No one? What about Seamus?" Ginny said pushing the subject.

"Nope."

"Dean?"

"Nope."

"How about Harry?" Ginny asked.

Now Ginny was not jealous that Harry had taken a liking to Hermione. Sure she had a crush on him for quite sometime, but that ship had sailed. Now she was happily dating a boy named Owen who was in Hufflepuff. Now all she wanted was to see two of her best friends happy, and if that meant playing cupid then so be it. She was up for the challenge.

Finally Hermione closed her book. "Where is this coming from Ginny?"

"Oh no where." She said smiling. "I just noticed Harry looking at you this evening."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked thoroughly confused.

"Nothing. Oh look at the time. Well I should head off to sleep. See you tomorrow Hermione." Ginny said all of this in one breath, and with in the blink of an eye she had gathered her things and was heading up to her room.

Hermione hated not knowing what was going on. When she looked at her watch and saw that it was past midnight, she too gathered her thinks and exited the Gryffindor common room making her way to her own.

When she got back to the portrait, she was happy to see that he was still awake.

"Good evening Alexander." She said greeting him.

"Good evening Ms. Hermione. By the way, I wanted to apologize for earlier." He started off.

"What ever for." She asked perplexed.

"For not warning you that Mr. Malfoy was about to come out of the other side of the portrait. It was just that you were in such a hurry, that I couldn't spit it out fast enough."

"Oh please don't worry about it Alexander. As you can see I am perfectly fine." She said turning around to show that she escaped unscathed from the incident.

"Well that's good." He said with a sigh. "Next time I will be sure to warn you."

"Well I think it's about time I get to bed." Hermione said with a yawn. "Tempus Fugit, Goodnight."

After she got up into her room, she changed out of her clothes and into her pajamas and hopped into bed. Once again her night was filled with dreams of Dylan and a never-ending field of stunning flowers.

However, on the other side of the common room, Draco Malfoy's dreams were a bit more detailed, another memory from his past.

_It was a warm summer night; Kate's parents had just had a just finished having some kind off cookout and Kate and he were lying out behind a tree looking up at the stars._

_In the background, Kate's parents were playing some kind of mixed CD. By this time, the majority of the guest had left and her parents were cleaning up the mess left behind._

_When one song ended, another one started up. As soon as it started, Kate started singing along. After a few seconds, he came up with an idea._

_He got up and offered his hand to the girl. Immediately, she took his hand and he pulled her off the ground._

_As soon as she was up, they started twirling around like they were dancing. The entire time they danced, while Kate sang along to the song. _

_After a few minutes, they had stopped spinning and were only swaying back and forth as the song started to come to an end._

"_When the lights go down in the city_

_And the sun shines on the bay"_

_At this point he could barley hear Kate sing the lyrics because they had become a whisper. _

"_I want to be there in my city_

_Ooh, ooh, ooh"_

_It was one of those moments that someone would never want to forget. And he never wanted to forget it. Ever._

_But sadly it was only a memory and a dream, meaning that it was coming to an end._

And just like any other morning, Malfoy woke up from that dream.

**A/N. Well there you go. Sorry about the lack of excitement in the chapter. And I'm assuming CD's were around. Also, I'll be 'out of touch' with my computer for a while so the updates will probably come slower. Love you guys though!**

**:Dani**

**Oh and by the way, the song in this chapter is Lights by Journey!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N. Hey guys! I know that it's been forever and a day since I've updated this thing but this summer was not as relaxing as I thought it was going to be. I've finally moved out of my house and into my own place, so I will hopefully have a lot more time to write now! So here is the long awaited seventh chapter. Enjoy :D**

The next morning, Draco was terrified to leave his room. After what happened the day before with his dream about Kate, he was worried that something along the same lines would happen again. Finally after pacing back and forth in his bedroom for fifteen minutes, he finally talked himself into leaving his dorm. He decided just to skip breakfast and head straight to his first class.

He spent the entire day waiting for something to happen, but to his surprise, nothing did. And in a way, he couldn't help but be grateful that he didn't see Granger once the entire day.

Lucky for him, he hardly saw her that entire week. Every once in a while they would cross paths in the common room, and they had a few classes together, but not a single word or look was exchanged between the two.

By Thursday he was back to his usual arrogant self. He had decided that what happened was just some strange coincidence, and he was sure that it was never going to happen again.

By the weekend, he had pretty much forgotten about the dream all together and had slipped back into his normal schedule.

It was nine thirty Sunday night and Draco Malfoy was sitting in the heads common room finishing his homework and eating dry cheerios with a glass of milk. He was enjoying the warmth that was radiating off the fire, and was looking forward to a good nights sleep.

About fifteen minutes later he heard the common room door open and close, then the sound of someone plopping down on the couch across from him.

When he looked up from his work, he saw Granger also working on some schoolwork. He had two choices, he could either annoy her until she leaves, or just let her be. He decided that since she hadn't bothered him all week, that he would just leave her alone for now, unless she did something to piss him off in some way.

After a few minutes of silence, Draco started hearing a noise that was coming from in front of him.

He glanced up over his book to see Granger humming some kind of tune. He took some cheerios and tossed them in his mouth as he contemplated what exactly the tune was.

After a few seconds, he shrugged and went back to working on his essay. But soon, he unknowingly started humming the tune along with her, with his mouth still stuffed full of cheerios.

Across from him, Hermione was in a completely different world, once again reliving an old memory. Suddenly she noticed that Malfoy was humming along. She was shocked that Mr. Pureblood Malfoy himself actually knew a muggle song, one of her favorite songs as a matter of fact.

"When the lights go down in the city, and the sun shines on the bay," she sang almost inaudibly, but being just loud enough for Malfoy to hear. "Oh I want to be there in my city."

"Ooh oh ooh, oh ooh oh." Draco finished off the last bit.

Suddenly he was back in his dream from a week ago, and he tossed another handful of cheerios into his mouth. After a few seconds of reminiscing, the light went on in his head.

When he first realized what song it was, he started chocking on the cheerios that were now blocking his air passage, causing all the papers he was holding to fly everywhere.

Hermione had no idea what to do, one second they were sharing some kind of mutual moment of peace. But now Malfoy was choking on his cereal, and she didn't know what she should do. Should she go over and perform the himelick maneuver and save his life, let him cough them up himself, or just let him die an almost humorous death.

Malfoy kept coughing trying to get them up; finally he hacked them up and sent them flying across the gap between them, covering Hermione in semi soggy cheerios.

Malfoy sat there staring at her in complete shock. Everything had been going so well. It had been almost a week since he had that dream and he thought that he had been in the clear. But apparently he was wrong. He was sending daggers at the girl across from him.

The saying 'if looks could kill' came to Hermione's mind at that exact moment, and she honestly thought that at any second Malfoy would jump across the coffee table between them and strangle her to death.

"YOU!" He said pointing an accusing finger at her. After a few seconds of silence, he picked up one his heavier textbooks and started hitting himself in the head with it.

Hermione was shocked; this was the strangest thing that she had ever seen him do. One second he looked like he was going to kill her, and the next he was physically abusing himself. Now she hated Malfoy with the passion of a thousand suns, but she didn't want to see hurting himself. So she quickly got up, and yanked the book out of his hands.

"What is wrong with you?" She asked with a hint of concern in her voice.

"YOU!" He yelled, "You, this is all YOUR fault! God you have no idea how much I want to hurt you right now."

At that comment, Hermione's look of concern disappeared from her face and was replaced by one of fear. Hermione started slowly backing away from the enraged Slytherin.

He slowly got up and started walking towards her until he backed her against a wall. He put his hands on each side of her head and he took a deep breath. He was so close that every time he breathed out, she could feel it across her face. He had long past her comfort zone.

Looking down at her, he leaned in and spoke. "Do not under any circumstances, EVER talk to me. If you are anywhere near me, I don't want to hear a single word come out of your mouth. Do you understand?" He said making sure to keep eye contact with her.

She quickly nodded unable to look away from him.

Swiftly he backed away from her, walked across the room, went up to him dorm, and slammed the door behind him.

Immediately Hermione slid down to the floor. Never in her entire life had she ever been as scared as she was moments before. Sure she knew that Malfoy disliked her, but she had never seen him that angry. She didn't even know what she did to make him so mad at her. One thing was for sure; she would never forget the coldness in his steely eyes.

After sitting alone on the common room floor for another ten minutes Hermione picked herself up and went up to her room, leaving all of her schoolwork down stairs.

As soon as she closed the door behind her, she went straight to her bed and laid down. Within minutes she was fast asleep.

But what was happening in the dorm across from hers was a whole different story.

As soon as Malfoy slammed the door behind him he put a silencing charm over his room and started throwing everything he could get his hands on. Once he was satisfied with the damage he had caused, he fell down on his bed. Immediately after he hit the bed he grabbed a pillow to cover his face and screamed into it.

He didn't even understand why that had made him so angry. He couldn't even think of another time in his life when he had been that livid.

When he started thinking back to what had just occurred the first thing that popped into his mind was an image of the look on Grangers face when he had cornered her. Sure he had been mean to her in the past, but he had never seen her look so scared.

Any other day, Draco would of felt a bit of remorse for the girl, but in his opinion she got what she deserved.

Looking at the time, he saw that it was only 10:15. He knew one thing was for sure; he was not going to bed that night.

But what was he going to do for the next nine hours.

Around 6:30 the next morning, Hermione woke to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. Why in the heck was Malfoy up that early? At the though of his name, everything from the night before came flooding back to her.

As soon as she heard the shower turn off and his bedroom door close on the other side, Hermione figured that she might as well get up.

As soon as she got into the bathroom, she put about four different locking charms on his bedroom door.

Hermione couldn't help but think about what had happened the night before. She was trying to think of what could of set him off. The only thing that she could remember happening around that time was that she was singing that song. But why would he get so mad about here singing a song.

When she got out of the shower, she quickly dried off and got dressed for the day.

Before leaving her room, she peaked her head out of the door, just to make sure that Malfoy wasn't lingering about. When she decided that the coast was clear, she ran as fast as she could for the portrait hole. As soon as the portrait closed behind her, she breathed in a sigh of relief.

"Oh good morning Ms. Granger. What's got you in such a hurry on this lovely day?" Alexander asked when he saw her out of breath. She jumped when she heard his voice, afraid that it might have been Malfoy.

"Oh good morning Alexander, um I just didn't particularly want to run in to Malfoy. I would rather not ruin my day this early in the morning." She finished with a smile on her face.

Alexander frowned as she started to walk down the hall. He was hoping that this boy would figure some things out before it was to late.

When Hermione finally made it down to the great hall, she was relieved to see that Harry and Ron were already sitting down at the Gryffindor table eating their breakfast.

She went over and sat across from Harry and silently started filling her plate with food.

After a few minutes of silence, Hermione screamed when someone tapped on her shoulder. Suddenly, everyone in the hall was looking at her, even a certain Slytherin across the hall. When she made eye contact with him, he glared at her as if saying 'you better stop looking at me or you will regret it.'

Quickly she reverted her eyes back down to her food.

"Dang Hermione, it's only me." Ginny said as she sat down next to her.

Once everybody went back to their own conversations, Hermione decided to take a chance and took a glance over at Malfoy. To her surprise, Malfoy didn't look too good. She was a pretty good distance away from him and she could see the bags under his eyes, his hair wasn't as neat as it usually was, and he just looked like had hadn't slept last night.

Across the hall, Draco got the feeling that someone's eyes were burning a hole in the side of his head. When he looked up, he wasn't to surprised to see Granger suddenly looking down intently at her plate.

Sick of being surrounded by people, Draco decided that he'd rather be to class early then be surrounded by all the people talking around him.

Once Draco got down to the dungeons, he was happy to find that the class was empty. He immediately went over to his seat and put his head down on the desk and closed his eyes.

He had never been this tired in his entire life. Why was it that he didn't go to sleep last night? Then he remembered; it was because he was too afraid that he would have another dream about 'her'. The sad thing was that he would have to go to sleep sooner or later.

_All the sudden Kate and him were walking down the hallway of their primary school hand in hand. Class had just let out and the two best friends were heading to recess. _

_When they finally made their way onto the playground, there were kids running amuck everywhere, but as usual Kate and Dylan began making their way to their little spot in the woods. _

_Before they could make it though, some kid who was running across the playground ran straight into Dylan causing him to fall down on the ground. _

"Draco!" Blaise said causing him to wake up.

"Didn't get enough sleep last night?" Blaise asked as he took his seat next to him.

When Draco looked around he saw that the majority of the class had already arrived, including Potter, Weasley, and Granger who were seated directly in front of him.

He couldn't believe that he had been dreaming about Kate. How was that even possible, he couldn't of been asleep for more than ten minutes? This was going to be a long day.

In front of the blonde, Harry was contemplating what was going on with Hermione this morning. She had been on edge, she freaked out at every little movement and sudden noises. Plus she was being unusually quite.

"Hermione are you okay?" Harry asked her.

She had heard him but was pretending she didn't. For the first time in her life she was hoping that Snape would hurry up and get to class. She knew that Malfoy was right behind them and she really didn't want to some how piss him off again.

After a few seconds he tried again. "Hermione?" But she still pretended to be immersed in her book.

Finally he grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. "What going on with you today?" But immediately after he finished his sentence, the door to the potions classroom flew open and Snape came gliding in.

Without saying a word, Hermione turned back around in her seat, but not before Harry saw her shoot a worried glance behind her.

When Harry turned to see what she was looking at, he saw Malfoy glaring at the back of Hermione's head. How had he not guessed this in the first place, Malfoy was the reason Hermione was acting differently today.

Through out the rest of the lesson Harry watched Hermione very closely, but she never said a single word. Snape had asked the class a number of questions, but her hand never went up to answer any of them.

What had Malfoy done to her?

For the rest of the day, Hermione hardly paid attention in any of her classes. Instead she found herself daydreaming about being a kid. Anything to keep her mind off of what happened the night before. When she wasn't daydreaming she would be looking out of a nearby window or closely examining any surface that was in front of her, and Harry took notice of all of this. He was worried about her.

It wasn't until later, when Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and him were all sitting in the Gryffindor common room, that he decided to try and confront her again.

"Hermione?" He asked the girl sitting next to him.

"Hmm?" She answered back; more comfortable talking now that Malfoy was nowhere near her.

"What was going on with you today?" She could hear the concern in his voice, but there was no way that she was going to tell him what had happened. So instead she just lied.

"Oh, I just wasn't feeling well." She said with a warm smile.

Harry sighed, he knew that she was lying but he wasn't going to push the issue.

The group spent the rest of the night studying and doing homework. Hermione had been so busy that she had lost track of time. When she finally looked at her watch and saw that it was ten till eleven, she freaked out. She quickly got up and started gathering her things.

"What's the rush Hermione, it's not like you'll get in trouble for being out after curfew, you are head girl and all." Ginny pointed out as Hermione scrambled about organizing her things.

"Oh well umm," she stuttered. "I just want to get a good nights sleep, that's all." Finally ready she started running out of the portrait hole. "I'll see you all in the morning."

Ginny shook her head when the door closed behind her. "Something is strange about that girl." But she quickly dismissed the thought and went back to her work.

But Harry on the other hand was still looking at the portrait hole where she just left. Something was defiantly going on with her.

A few minutes after Hermione made her departure Ginny also excused herself to go to sleep. Now Harry and Ron were the only ones left in the common room.

"Hey Ron?"

"Hmm?" Ron said not bothering to look up from his parchment.

"I think I'm going to go for a walk. Don't wait up." With that Harry got up and left the common room.

As soon as Hermione had left Gryffindor tower she sprinted through the castle, making her way towards the heads dorm. The reason she was in such a hurry to get back was because Malfoy was patrolling that night and it ended at exactly eleven o'clock, and she did not want to run into him. So the safest bet was to get back in her room before his patrol even ended. But now she was pushing it, she had three minutes to safely make it.

Fortunately she made it back to the dorm with a minute to spare. She couldn't help but let out a sigh of a relief when she closed the bedroom door behind her.

Now that she was safe, she took her sweet time getting herself ready for bed.

Finally she got into her warm bed and turned out the lights.

While the head girl lay safely in her bed, Draco Malfoy was still walking lazily about the castle. Even though his patrol had already ended, his feet didn't seem to want to take him back to his dorm. At least walking around would surely keep him awake.

Little did he know that his peaceful stroll wouldn't remain peaceful for long.

Suddenly he found himself shoved up against a wall with a wand at his throat.

"What the hell?" Draco said when he saw Potter glaring at him.

"Malfoy I don't know what you did to Hermione, but lets get something straight! You need to stay the hell away from her. Even if she doesn't tell me if something happens, I'll know." Draco could tell that he was trying to make himself sound intimidating. This whole situation probably would scare the hell out of anybody else, but Draco wasn't just anybody. And he wasn't going to take any of Potter's crap.

"So if you do anything to harm her in anyway, you will have to face me. Got it?" Harry asked while digging his wand deeper into Draco's neck.

"Sure." Draco said sounding bored.

Slowly Harry lowered his wand and started to walk away satisfied with his work.

"Hey Potter!"

Harry turned around, but before he could even comprehend what was going to happen, Draco's fist met his face, causing Harry to collapse to the floor.

"Now lets get something straight Potter," Draco said as he massaged his knuckles and looked down on Harry. "If you ever touch me or even come at me like that again, you will surely regret it. And also, apparently you didn't get the memo; I don't take shit from anyone, got it?" And with that Malfoy left Harry alone and bloody on the floor. He was now officially sick of walking around the castle.

When he finally made it back to the common room, Draco plopped himself on the couch. He couldn't help but be satisfied at the fact that he had finally gotten to punch Potter. Serves him right for trying to threaten him.

But why exactly did he seek him out in the middle of the night like that. Usually Potter would just keep his mouth shut unless Draco did something to his, Weasley's, or Granger's face. But this time he went looking for him and actually threatened him for something that he knew nothing about. Draco knew that Granger wouldn't have said a word to that bumbling idiot. Draco had to admit, Potter had some guts to actually confront him like that.

Then it clicked. Potter had some kind of secret crush for Granger. It wasn't a secret that Weasley was in love with the girl; everyone in the school knew that. But what would happen if the red head found out that his best mate had feelings for the same girl that he was in love with. Oh this information could be useful.

If anyone could observe Draco Malfoy at that exact moment, they would see the gears turning in his head and his signature smirk dancing across his face.

He closed his eyes and started imagining all of the amazing and evil things he could do with this information. Before he knew it, he was no long scheming, but was off in a dreamland; or in Draco's case, a nightmare.

_All the sudden Kate and him were walking down the hallway of their primary school hand in hand. Class had just let out and the two best friends were heading to recess. _

_When they finally made their way onto the playground, there were kids running amuck everywhere, but as usual Kate and Dylan began making their way to their little spot in the woods. _

_Before they could make it though, some kid who was running across the playground ran straight into Dylan causing him to fall down on the ground. _

"_Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there. You see we were playing tag and…" But before the boy could finish the sentence, Dylan had gotten up and shoved the boy to the ground. _

_After staring at Dylan for a second, the boy got up and ran away from them._

_When Dylan looked over at Kate, he could see the disappointment that was etched on her face._

"_Why did you push him?" She asked._

"_Umm because he ran into me and knocked me to the ground." He answered back._

"_But he didn't mean to knock you down. It was an accident."_

_He sighed. "You're right." He mumbled to her while he looked down at his feet. _

"_I also think that you should apologize to him." She said as she pointed to the boy who was now crying by a tree._

"_Okay." Dylan knew that what he did was wrong, and Kate was right; he needed to apologize. The boy did say sorry to him, and he really didn't mean to run into him in the first place. _

_Slowly Dylan made his way over to the child. When he finally got to the boy, who he now remembered name was Alex, he didn't really know what to say._

"_Umm Alex?" He started off._

_When Alex looked up at him, Dylan could see a look of fear on his face._

"_Umm, I wanted to apologize for pushing you over. You didn't mean to run into me and, I'm sorry." Dylan held his hand out to help the boy up._

_Alex examined his hand for a second, and then he decided to take it. "I'm sorry again for knocking you over in the first place."_

"_It's okay. Friends?" Dylan asked with a smile on his face._

"_Friends." Alex said before he ran off and continued playing with the other children._

_Suddenly Dylan felt someone grab onto his hand. When he turned to see who it was, he was happy to see it was Kate with a smiling back at him. Kate always brought out the best in him. With that the two children continued their journey to their favorite spot. _

When Draco woke up the next morning he generally felt well rested. But when he remembered his dream from the night before, the good feeling went away.

"Oh bugger." He covered his face with one of the pillows on the couch and groaned. He knew what he had to do.

**A/N. YAY chapter seven is complete. For some reason I get more written when school is in session. Also I have two little plot bunnies hopping around in my head right now, one that has been there for months now, but I refuse to start another story until this one is finished. Especially since this one will probably wrap up sooner then my other one. **

**Well thanks for reading! So what do you all think that last line means? Tell me I love to hear your theories!**

**:Dani**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N. Hello I'm back, and it's not three months later :D So here is chapter eight, and I hope you all enjoy it!**

After figuring out what he had to do, Draco looked at the time and saw that it was almost seven o'clock in the morning. He quickly jumped up off the couch and sprinted to his room. Unfortunately he only had thirty minutes to get cleaned up before breakfast started.

When he entered the bathroom and saw that the mirrors were still fogged up, he knew that Granger was already up and ready, so there was no need for him to worry about her interrupting him.

As he stepped into the shower and felt the warm water consume his skin, he started contemplating how exactly he was going to go about doing this. It was something that he was not looking forward to.

As soon as Hermione heard the shower turn on in the room next to hers, she knew it was safe to leave without the threat of bumping into Malfoy.

"Good morning Alexander," she said greeting the portrait the second she stepped out of the door.

"Ah good morning , you seem to be in a pleasant mood this morning."

"Yes I am actually," she said with a smile on her face. "But please Alexander, call me Hermione."

"Alright then. Well you better be getting down to breakfast." He said smiling back at the young girl.

"Oh right, have a good day Alexander I'll see you later." She said over her shoulder as she started down the hall.

As he watched the head girl walk down the hall, Alexander came to the conclusion that this was the happiest he had been in awhile. Never before had a student actually taken the time to stop and get to know him a bit. He was just hoping her could be of help to her.

Once Hermione got to breakfast, she sat down and started to fill her bowl with porridge. While she ate, she couldn't help but keep a close eye on the entrance door, waiting to see when Harry and Ron would join her. She knew they would come eventually because they never missed a meal.

About ten minutes after she arrived, she saw Malfoy walk in. From the moment he walked in, she could see a drastic difference in him from the day before. Instead of looking like the crypt keeper, he looked like he actually got a decent night of sleep. And she could have sworn she saw a hint of a smile on his face, but she could just be seeing things.

Shaking her head she glanced back over to the entrance just in time to see Harry and Ron walk in. Once she saw them, she went back to eating her food. She just felt more comfortable when they were at her side when Malfoy was anywhere near her.

After a few seconds she heard them sit down across from her. When she didn't immediately hear them start stuffing there faces full of food, she looked up. She gasped loudly at what she saw. "What in the HELL happened to you?" She almost screamed while covering her mouth in shock.

Harry's entire left cheek and underneath his eye were black and blue. And it was obvious that his nose was broken from its abnormal state and the dried blood around it. She couldn't help but lean forward and lightly touch his face, but even the lightest touch of her fingers caused him to flinch back in pain.

"Come with me." She said gently so that she wouldn't cause even more of a scene. Quietly the two of them got up and walked out of the great hall, leaving Ron behind to eat some breakfast.

Across the hall, an ecstatic Draco Malfoy could not contain his laughter causing his fellow Slytherin's give him strange looks. He couldn't believe that Potter didn't heal himself before coming down to breakfast. After thinking about it for a second, he came to the conclusion that he was either too embarrassed to go to Madam Pomfrey and was just too dumb to fix it himself. This was definitely a great start to his day.

As soon as Hermione and Harry left the great hall, she lead them down a few sets of stairs and a number of corridors that Harry didn't recognize. Finally Harry couldn't contain himself anymore.

"Hermione, where exactly are you taking me?" He asked.

"Don't worry," She answered back "We're almost there."

A few seconds later she came to an abrupt stop in front of a portrait of a bowl of fruit, after glancing around them to make sure no one else was around, she leaned forward. Harry was more then slightly confused when he saw Hermione start tickling the pear in the painting. He was even more surprised when the pear started to giggle then suddenly turned into a shiny silver doorknob.

As soon as Hermione opened the door and pushed him in, Harry's nose was met with a plethora of smells. He was even more surprised when he saw house elf's running about all over the place preparing food and cleaning dishes.

"Where exactly are we Hermione?" Harry asked still confused.

"We are in the kitchens." She said as she dragged him over to a smaller version of one of the tables in the great hall. As soon as they sat down, some of the house elf's started filling the table in front of them with an assortment of breakfast foods.

"I thought that it might be a good idea to bring you down here to heal you." She said as she pulled out her wand and started doing a number of spells to heal his face. "So that you don't have people staring at you and you can eat you breakfast in peace."

"Thank you." Was all he could say at that moment. The truth was that he didn't know how he could ever really thank her. Not only did she save him from embarrassment, but she was also healing him.

After a few seconds he picked up a slice of toast and took a bite.

"What happened to you anyway?" She asked as a house elf brought her a washcloth and a bowl of warm water.

"Oh umm." He stuttered as he quickly tried to come up with some kind of lame excuse. "Well you see I last night I was trying to get to the restroom, and it was dark and I tripped over Ron's trunk, and well you can see what happened." He was actually kid of surprised by his quick thinking.

"Oh," was all she said as she dipped the washcloth into the warm water. Once she ringed it out she started gently rubbing the dried blood from his face.

He couldn't help but blush. All he wanted to do was lean forward and plant a single kiss on her lips. He felt like this was the moment, but he couldn't pull himself to do it. If Ron ever found out, he would probably hex Harry into oblivion. He needed to keep his mind occupied; he needed to keep her talking.

"Eh Hermione?" At the sound of her name, she looked up into Harry's eyes. "Hmm?" She answered back.

"You know if you ever need an ear, you can always come talk to me." He said hoping that she may decide to tell him what happened with Malfoy. "You can tell me anything." He assured her.

Harry could see the change in her facial expression almost immediately, and Hermione could tell that he knew something was bothering her. But she just really didn't want to worry him anymore than he already was.

"Harry," she said grabbing his hands and putting on an almost believable smile. "Everything is absolutely fine. I promise."

Once again he knew that she was lying, but he wasn't going to push the issue any further.

After she finished cleaning him up, they spent the rest of their breakfast in comfortable silence. When they finally finished, they both gave their thanks and said goodbye to the house elves and started making their way to their lessons for the day. Lucky for them their first class was potions so they didn't have to far to travel.

Once they got to the potions class and took their seats, Ron immediately started asking where the two of them had been.

Harry and Hermione quickly looked at each other, both asking the other the same question without even needing to say a word. Should they tell Ron that they were down in the kitchens? If they did, Ron would demand that they show him where it was so that he could, no doubt, spend all his free time down there stuffing his face.

Discreetly, Hermione shook her head no. "Hermione just took me up to the common room and fixed me up." Harry said coming up with his second quick lie of the morning.

At that moment a relaxed Draco Malfoy entered the room and took his usual seat behind the trio. He had to admit he was a tad bit worried that another incident would occur, but he took a deep breath and told himself not to worry.

"So Hermione, have you started that essay for McGonagall yet?" Ron unexpectedly asked her out of the blue.

Suddenly she was very aware of the blonde Slytherin currently seated behind her. She could feel his eyes burning a hole in the back of her head. Without even meaning to, she quickly glanced behind her. But to her surprise their eyes immediately met, and for once she didn't see a single ounce of anger directed towards her. It was such a drastic transformation from the last time she looked him straight in the eyes. Then she was even more shocked when he gave her a curt nod and then started talking to Blaise Zabini who just sat down next to him.

She couldn't believe what she just saw. It was like Malfoy was giving her permission to talk, not that she needed it, but it was more like him saying that he wasn't going to blow up on her. When she turned back to face her two friends with a small grin on her face, she answered Ron's question.

Ron being the oblivious idiot that he was didn't notice the ever so slight change in Hermione; but Harry did. One second she was all tensed up and looked like she was scared for her life, then the next she looked completely comfortable, even almost happy.

When he glanced back at the table behind them from the corner of his eye, he saw Malfoy glance at the back of Hermione's head. What bugged Harry was that the look on his face showed no hatred towards his best friend. In fact, his face showed not type of emotion what so ever. For some reason he felt like Malfoy was up to something.

Harry wasn't the only person in the room the noticed something. "What was that about?" Blaise asked as soon as he sat down next to his long time friend.

"What are you going on about?" Draco answered back trying to sound like he had no idea what Blaise was talking about.

"Oh come on Draco, how long have you known me? Do you really think that I can't tell that there has been something strange going on with you these past few weeks? I'm not Crabbe and Goyle." Blaise said referring to Draco's old sidekicks.

Draco had to admit, Blaise was a lot more observant then he gave him credit for. Maybe he could tell Blaise what was going on, they had been best friends since they were kids.

"Okay look," Draco said whispering "I'll tell you what's going on but we can't do it here. Meet me at the room of requirement tonight at around ten and I'll explain."

Shortly after this, Snape came in and started instructing them on the proper way to brew the Elixir to Induce Euphoria.

The rest of the day went by smoothly for Hermione. Now she still wasn't back to her usual self, but she was definitely more comfortable talking whenever Malfoy was anywhere near her.

Later that night when everyone was at dinner, Colin nervously approached the trio and handed Hermione a note. After Colin scurried back to his end of the table, Hermione immediately tore open the note.

"What's that about?" Harry asked while Hermione quickly scanned over the note.

"Oh I just have to meet Dumbledore in his office for a heads' meeting right after dinner. No big deal." She said as she folded the note up and went back to her meal.

Five minutes before dinner was over, Hermione started making her way up to the headmaster's office.

After Professor Dumbledore let her in, they didn't have to wait long for Malfoy to arrive. A few minutes later he came in and sat himself down in the seat next to her.

"Good evening to the both of you," Dumbledore started off. "I hope that everything is going smoothly for each of you so far this semester."

But before either of them could answer he continued. "Now I know that Hogwarts does not usually hold any type of dances or balls. But after seeing how well the Yule Ball turned out, I've decided to maybe give it another try."

Both Hermione and Draco looked at their professor shocked; never in the history of Hogwarts has there been a ball outside of the Yule ball that occurred during the Triwizard Tournament.

"Now of course I will need my the both of you to do all the planning for the dance. It will be a ball that will take place on Halloween night. Can I rely on the two of you to handle everything?"

"Of course sir." Hermione replied while Malfoy gave an uninterested nod.

"Alright then, I expect that you two will need to start planning as soon as possible seeing as you only have a months time. Well I think that is everything; you both are now free to go back to your dorms. Good-night." He said dismissing them from his office.

Just before she closed the door behind her, Hermione could have sworn she heard the professor say something along the lines of "Everything is going along just as planned." What in the world did that even mean? Then again nobody really understood what Dumbledore was speaking about half the time.

Beside her, Draco was pondering the exact same thing she was. But he was just convinced that the old geezer had finally lost it.

Since the two of them were going to the same place, they had no choice but to walk next to each other the entire way back up to the head's dorm. To say that the atmosphere was uncomfortable would be an understatement.

Up to this point Hermione had been okay. Ever since their silent encounter earlier that day in potions, she had been fine being around him. But also her friends had also surrounded her at the same time. Now it was just Malfoy and her walking silently down a deserted corridor. The first though that came to mind was if anyone would be able to hear her scream.

"Uh, Granger?" Draco asked awkwardly. He knew that he was going to have to do this sooner or later, and to be honest he was hoping for later. But he probably wouldn't get a better chance then this.

"Yeah?" She answered back trying to keep her voice steady hoping that he wouldn't be able to sense her fear.

"Okay you need to listen up, because I'm only going to say this once." He said while staring down at his feet. "I wanted to apologize for what happened the other night in the common room."

Hermione was so shocked that she stopped walking all together. Did she really just hear Draco Malfoy apologize to her? She couldn't believe this was happening.

When Draco realized that she was no longer walking beside him, he stopped and saw her a few feet back staring at him in shock. Sighing he walked back over to her.

"I can't tell you why I freaked out the way I did, so your just going to have to accept that." He said snidely trying to sound more like himself, maybe even bring her out of her shocked state.

A few seconds later Hermione came back to her senses and they continued walking in silence.

After a few minutes Draco spoke up again. "Now don't think this is going to change anything Granger, you're still a stupid mud-blooded bookworm. Don't think that this puts us on friendly terms because it doesn't." He said finally sounding like the usual Draco, but he became confused when he heard the girl beside him giggle a little bit.

"I wouldn't expect it any other way." She said with a small grin on her face. She knew that he wasn't going to suddenly turn into a nice guy and she was okay with that. Knowing that things were going to go back to normal was good enough for her. The only thing tonight showed her was that he wasn't exactly the terrible person she thought he was; there was something else there.

When they got back to the common room they both went their separate ways into their own bedrooms. As soon as Hermione's door closed behind her she took off her clothes, put on some clean pajamas, and slid into bed. Up to that point, she hadn't realized just how tired she was. It wasn't long till she was fast asleep.

Draco on the other hand still had a busy night ahead of him. He had a lot of explaining to do.

**A/N. HEY! So this chapter actually ended up being quite a bit longer then I expected it to be, which was the good news. Now here's the bad news. No I am not abandoning this story, that would be terrible. But I have taken on a few extra things for the next few months. So on top of all my college classes, I have two story challenges I signed up for over in the forums. I also am taking part in NanoWriMo this year. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a challenge to write a 50k+ word original novel from Nov 1****st**** thru Nov 30****th****. Yes I know I'm crazy. But I will try to work on this too, this story will continue. I promise. Thanks for reading, leave a review and say HEY!**

**:Dani**


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